What You See in the Dark (6 page)

Her realization unspooled an unease. She had a habit of watching cups and glasses when they were filled to their tops, trying to walk as smoothly as possible so none of the liquid would spill over and make a mess. But this time, heading back to the table, the brightness of the woman’s yellow blouse brought Arlene to near distraction, and she had to set the cups down on the counter before the couple could see, and swipe the edges clean where some of the tea had spilled. The couple didn’t notice her and neither did Vernon or Cal, whose backs were turned to the booths. Vernon, in fact, was rising and reaching for his wallet to pay his familiar tab.

“Bye, now,” Vernon said, and stepped out the door, just as Arlene was setting the cups down. She was too focused on setting them down and not spilling again that by the time she could raise her head to return his good-bye, the door had already closed.

“What can I get you?” she asked. Without hesitation, the man ordered a full breakfast, but the woman took her time, her eyes down on the menu, and while she did so, Arlene looked closer at her yellow blouse. It was made of silk, right down to the round crafted buttons.

“Just toast and tea,” the woman said.

Arlene didn’t bother to write it down and took their menus. “Pardon me,” she said, “but does anyone ever tell you that you look like—”

The woman interrupted her with a wave of her hand and a shy, almost nervous smile. “Oh, no! Not in the least.”

“You mean no one tells you?”

“No, I mean I don’t think I look like her at all.”

Cal turned around in the commotion, and the woman gave him a glance but brought her eyes right back to Arlene. She held them there, smiling politely, but offered no response. She wouldn’t take her eyes off Arlene. Finally, she asked, “Is there something wrong?”

“No, ma’am,” said Arlene. But as she walked away, she muttered, “The spitting image,” regretting it instantly. The words came out low, almost under her breath, maybe even with a note of unintended hostility—here was the perception about her all over again, the way she carried herself, but now with people who didn’t even live in the city. She wasn’t a mean, cheerless person at all, just exhausted, unable to summon the spirited smiles of the young waitresses, the way they pitched their voices high and loud and sunny, always enough to turn a whole table of men deep in conversation to answer back. It was difficult to balance her tone or the need to smile, like trying to remember to correct her posture, trying to stand straight as a dancer.

She could hear Cal swivel the stool, back to his paper, as she made her way back to the kitchen to hand in their order. The girls had finished both the magazine and the cigarettes and had been busy standing around. When one of them saw Arlene, the girl pulled her hip away from the counter and slung her apron off
her shoulder to get back to work. Arlene wished she wouldn’t—she’d see the couple out at the table—but in pretending to look rushed, she prompted the girl to hustle even more.

“Hey,” the girl said, looking through the door’s round window, “that’s my station.”

“I don’t mind, Priscilla,” said Arlene.

“I didn’t go over my break or anything,” said Priscilla. “It’s not like I was late.”

“I’ll throw you the tip,” said Arlene.

“He’s handsome,” said Priscilla. “How come the men in town don’t dress like him?”

The cook rang the bell and pushed over the man’s breakfast plate.

“He’s a big eater,” said Priscilla, and before Arlene could stop her, she grabbed his plate and scurried toward the door, giggling at Arlene as she passed through.

The woman’s toast came next, and Arlene cut two small squares of butter as quickly as she could, rushing out to the table. As she’d guessed, Priscilla must have recognized the woman’s face right away: she stood with her hand on her hip, her mouth open in a wide, disbelieving smile as the woman shook her head.

“Your toast, miss,” said Arlene. “Thanks, Priscilla. Is there anything else we can get you?”

“No, ma’am, we’re fine,” said the man, raising his utensils and holding them over the plate.

Arlene put her hand on Priscilla’s arm. Priscilla looked as if she was about to ignore the man’s signal. “Let’s let them eat now.”

It took no time at all for Priscilla to report back to the rest, and Arlene shushed them when they all gathered at the kitchen door to have a look for themselves. “It may or it may not be her,” she said to them in a harsh whisper. “But behave yourselves. It’s all about grace.”

“That’s not her,” someone said. “That’s not her husband.”

“She’s too busty.”

“There’s no such thing as too busty.”

“Grab the magazine,” someone else said. “I think there was a picture of her in there, no?”

“That’s not her husband,” someone said again.

“You big dummy, if she’s having an affair, that’s exactly why she’s here and not in Hollywood.”

“Girls,” Arlene said firmly. “Enough. Get away from that door.”

“We have to get back to work anyway,” someone said. “The lunch rush is coming.”

“Fine,” said Arlene, but she moved in front of them to block the door. “But no gawking. Whether it’s her or not, it’s embarrassing to act like a bunch of teenagers when you’re supposed to be working.”

None of the girls answered back, but she could tell by their folded arms and pursed lips that they resented her tone. Still, each of them gathered an apron or a tray of condiments or a dishrag or a handful of clean silverware and fanned out among the tables and booths. She could see some of them trying to take a good look at the couple, but none of the girls did so obtrusively, the couple involved as they were in their conversation. They were left alone, and as the lunch crowd began to
filter in, the girls took to their tables and Arlene positioned herself behind the counter. Cal paid his bill silently and tipped his hat at her pointedly, and after he exited, she had a clear view of the couple as they chatted, the gorgeous yellow of the woman’s blouse and the pretty gray skirt she’d matched it with, the expensive shoes, and the wide belt on her tiny waist. The woman nibbled at her toast and the man spoke more than she did, but never while chewing. He put down his utensils when he spoke and never took his eyes away from her. Such attentiveness, she thought, couldn’t come from a husband. The girls, she knew, had probably already spotted the wedding bands on both of their fingers, but only the girls would know if the bands matched, if the couple had spouses in other places, if their lunch was secret despite its being out in the open.

More customers rang through the door, the bells tinkling their welcome, and the café filled with the clatter of silverware and afternoon greetings and footsteps across the tiled floors. The couple had never raised their voices, even when the café had been empty, but now Arlene could only guess at what they were saying, how the man held the woman’s attention, how they talked without ever pausing, without ever glancing away in disinterest. The girls flitted around with coffeepots, dashing back and forth into the kitchen, bringing back turkey sandwiches and chicken-fried steak: They were watching all of this between tasks and they would come up with a story, but it would be the wrong one. They would put it together during the next break time, flipping through
Modern Screen
and finding the picture of that actress and swearing up and down that she was wearing the same earrings if only you looked really close.
They would do so because Bakersfield was that kind of town. Here, people believed whatever story they wanted to believe, even if they made it up, and it had already had its own beginning and its own middle and its own end.

What she wanted to tell the girl waitresses was that life was not anything like those magazines, but she did not want to sound like a bitter woman. She had stories of her own to prove it. But how was she supposed to tell them, when no one bothered to ask her about her life? Especially not lately, since Frederick had left her, and all around her swirled assumptions about the reasons why. When Frederick left her, she was still Mrs. Watson. There was no maiden name to go back to. Not without being able to explain that she was from Oklahoma and he had been from Wisconsin, with no relations in between. She wanted to put down the coffeepot, the slice of apple pie, rest her hand on Priscilla’s shoulder, and explain, to tell her real story, as it had happened. To say to all of them,
There’s the story you think you know, and there’s the one I need to tell you.

She saw that the couple were beginning to wrap up their meal and she walked over to the table, drawing up the ticket right in front of them, trying to overhear anything they might still be saying, but they were quiet. Arlene ripped the ticket from her pad and set it facedown on the table, but she looked one more time at the woman, as if to invite her once again to admit that she was or wasn’t who they all thought. But the woman only stared back at her with a face so shorn of feeling that Arlene did as she had before—she looked away—and her thank-you to the customers came as it did on those days when she was most exhausted, the sunlight orange in the plate-glass
windows and the hours too slow, her voice caught in her throat, the very sound that reaffirmed everyone’s worst possible imaginings about her. What man, after all, would have stayed with someone who spoke so sharply, in such an unfriendly tone, her head hanging? How could a woman like that possibly be the mother of that radiant man who tended bar at Las Cuatro Copas, the one who made that Mexican shopgirl beam like she did?

“It’s her,” said Priscilla, watching as the couple exited the café, the man regally holding the door open for the woman. “I think the girls are right, though. That’s not her husband.”

“That’s terrible gossip,” said Arlene. “She’s a good woman stopping through town is all.”

“Did you see the rings? They were different! You can even see it in the magazine!”

“Do you believe everything you read?” asked Arlene. “Now, enough of this nonsense.” She tried to look at Priscilla in the same way that the woman had looked at her—cool yet defiant, placid yet standing her ground—but Priscilla only retreated and raised her eyebrows. One of the other girls came into the kitchen, and Priscilla wasted no time in leaning her head in to hers, her voice low and conspiratorial. Like schoolgirls. They made Arlene feel old all over again. She wasn’t that old.

She was only forty-seven. She could remember clear as anything being nine years old, sitting out on the front porch at one in the morning with her mother. Way back when Bakersfield wasn’t such a big city, back in 1921, their farmhouse on the outskirts of town. One night in August, Arlene had been unable to sleep, even with all the windows and both the front and
back doors open for a cross breeze, the summer air stuck in the house. At one in the morning, she rose from her nest of blankets on the living room floor and walked out on the porch, unafraid.

When her mother, awakened by the squeak of the porch door hinges, found her, she came out and sat next to Arlene on the steps.
Why are you out here?
her mother had asked, but she wasn’t expecting an answer.
Your brother is going to be the same person you remember when he left. Everything is going to be just like it was. Nothing’s changed.

Arlene walked to the empty booth and set about cleaning up the plates. But things always change, she thought to herself. She wasn’t just Mrs. Watson. Her name was Arlene, and she had once had a husband who said her name in the dark, and years ago her older brother had come back from prison to hug her and tell her that she was a sweet little sister. These things didn’t change simply because she had no one to tell them to. Arlene wanted to say this to those girls; she could see their faces as she wiped the booth’s table clean. She took the ticket and counted the money—the man was a big tipper.

Once upon a time,
her mother had told her on the porch,
there was a little girl. She had no shoes and no food and she was walking in the woods. It was very cold, but she saw a little house in the trees and there was a yellow light in the window. She knocked, but no one answered, so she opened the door. The little house was empty. It was very cold and she was hungry and there was a pot with food in it. She could see the steam rising from the pot, so she went to taste it. It was soup and it was delicious.

She had been nine years old and too old for stories, too old
to be resting her head on her mother’s lap, yet too young to be sitting alone on the porch at one in the morning. Arlene had listened to her mother’s voice and closed her eyes to picture the scene. Her mother was remembering the story terribly, leaving out all the details. Arlene saw herself cold and hungry. Her mother’s voice said “woods,” but they lived in Bakersfield, California, and there were no woods to be found. There were orchards, but they didn’t look like anything in the torn pages of the book of fairy tales from which her mother was trying to remember the story, a dense gathering of trees so gigantic that only the trunks appeared on the page. Arlene knew those trees, having memorized them as she stared at the pages of the fairy-tale book. Orchards had order to them, trees in straight lines in every direction, underbrush cleared out incessantly.
She was cold,
but in the book of fairy tales, that meant snow, which didn’t fall in Bakersfield. There was only fog and light rain that lasted for days.

At one point, Arlene had rested her hand on her mother’s knee to signal her to stop. When the girl tasted the soup, a wolf was supposed to come in, and then a handsome prince to save her, but her mother had the story all wrong in her attempt to retell it. Her mother told the story too fast. She did not linger on the darkness of the woods, the yellow eyes hiding in the night. She did not describe the warm glow of the house and how it held a promise of refuge, or the color of the soup, a clue to what kind it might be. Arlene was nine years old, already too old for stories, and had wondered to herself, ever since the day she had stared at the torn pages of the fairy-tale book, why the girl had a beautiful blue-checkered dress but ran barefoot. She wondered
why anyone would build a house in such dark woods. She wondered who had been cooking the soup, and why the bright yellow windows were not bathed in steam. She wondered what a handsome prince would want with a girl who had no shoes.